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Quotes about reading

116 quotes from 88 people

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You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.
John Adams1735–1826Letter to John Quincy Adams (14 May 1781)
- Poetry
I read my eyes out and can’t read half enough. … The more one reads the more one sees we have to read.
John Adams1735–1826Letter to Abigail Adams (28 December 1794), Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society
Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.
Joseph Addison1672–1719The Spectator (1711–1714), No. 166 (10 September 1711)
- Genius
There are two answers to the things they will teach you about our land: the real answer and the answer you give in school to pass. You must read books and learn both answers.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichieborn 1977Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), Part 1, Ch. 1
- Education
Why did people ask “What is it about?” as if a novel had to be about only one thing.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichieborn 1977Americanah (2013)
- Writing
In general, when reading a scholarly critic, one profits more from his quotations than from his comments.
W. H. Auden1907–1973The Dyer’s Hand, and Other Essays (1962), “Reading”
- Quotations
Only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.
Jane Austen1775–1817Northanger Abbey (1817), Chapter 5In context
- Writing
The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.
Jane Austen1775–1817Northanger Abbey (1817), Chapter 14In context
- Clever Jabs
Reading makes a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
Francis Bacon1561–1626Meditationes sacræ (1597), Of Studies
- Talking
- Writing
Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.
Francis Bacon1561–1626Meditationes sacræ (1597), Of Studies
Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.
Francis Bacon1561–1626Resuscitatio (1657), Proposition touching Amendment of Laws
- Science
Human beings can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.
Saul Bellow1915–2005“Him with His Foot in His Mouth,” from Him with His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories (1984) [Penguin Classics, 1998, ], p. 11
The covers of this book are too far apart.
Ambrose Bierce1842–1914The Devil’s Dictionary (1911).
A book is a loaded gun in the house next door.
Ray Bradbury1920–2012Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.
Ray Bradbury1920–2012Fahrenheit 451, Coda (1979)
- Freedom